Now i don't really care for Deftones, and i care a lot less for Mastodon. But Alice in Chains are one of my favs. And i don't really like big venues, so i haven't made up my mind if i want to go or not. Chances are that since; 1) the venues are huge 2) the line up being what it is the ticket prices are probably gonna be a little expensive.

Black Gives Way to Blue was a good record, but it's still weird to think about attending an "Alice in Chains" concert without Layne there. I'm torn -- I'm glad Jerry is respectful to his memory, but I sometimes wish the guys had changed their name.

Layne was only 1/4 of AIC, and he didn't contribute nearly as much as Cantrell did. Cantrell wrote more than half of all the lyrics and the music. Now i do wish i was able to see Layne back in the day but, i'll take what i can get.

Oh, I totally agree that AIC wasn't "All Layne". Indeed, it was mostly Jerry as far as composition is concerned. I believe Cantrell actually wrote 2/3 of the lyrics, and essentially everything pre-Dirt (Including Jar of Flies, which wasn't released until later.) But Layne's vocals -- and his heartbreaking lyrics on Dirt and Alice in Chains -- mean there's a large hole in my heart when it comes to AIC. My point is that I'd definitely see them in concert still -- I just wish the name were different. Probably just sentimentality.

Do you have any bootlegs of Jerry Cantrell's first solo tour in which he performed his own works and AIC songs, with Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche) as co-guitarist? Brilliant.

Also: for Layne stuff superior to the stuff he was contributing to AIC, check out Mad Season if you don't know it.

(Could I ask how old you are? I was in high school and college during the AIC heyday -- the music is dear to my heart and very important in my formative years of music taste development.)

Do you have any bootlegs of Jerry Cantrell's first solo tour in which he performed his own works and AIC songs, with Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche) as co-guitarist? Brilliant.

No i don't, if you have them it would be awesome if you could send them to me, or show me where to get it.

Also: for Layne stuff superior to the stuff he was contributing to AIC, check out Mad Season if you don't know it.

Yes i know about Mad Season, River of Deceit is one of my favorite songs from them. Do you know about Class of 99? It was Layne with Tom Morello, and some other people, they did a cover of Pink Floyds "another brick in the wall".

I'm 20, so yeah i missed the AIC when they were in their prime. When layne died i was only 13 and i didn't know anything about AIC then. Did you ever see AIC with layne?

if you have them it would be awesome if you could send them to me, or show me where to get it.

I would theoretically be happy to, but I lost all my concert FLACs in a catastrophic double-hard-drive failure, and I'm still trying to find all my CD-Rs. I'd recommend joining etree.org. But when I get my collection together again, I'll message you.

Yes, I know about Class of 99. Thanks.

I never saw AIC with Layne, no. The last proper AIC tour was, what, '93? That was before I started going to rock concerts (I started doing that in '96.) Shame. That's not my biggest concert regret story, though. I was living in San Diego at the time (late December 1991) that -- get this -- Pearl Jam and Nirvana opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in that city. Gah. If I had been a little bit older....